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Raccoons (Procyon lotor) and skunks (Mephitis mephitis) are mesopredators.Here they share cat food in a suburban backyard.. The mesopredator release hypothesis is an ecological theory used to describe the interrelated population dynamics between apex predators and mesopredators within an ecosystem, such that a collapsing population of the former results in dramatically increased populations of ...
An apex predator, also known as a top predator or superpredator, is a predator [a] at the top of a food chain, without natural predators of its own. [ 6 ] [ 7 ] Apex predators are usually defined in terms of trophic dynamics , meaning that they occupy the highest trophic levels .
The trophic level of an organism can change based on the other species present. For example, tuna can be an apex predator eating the smaller fish, such as mackerel. However, in a community where a shark species is present the shark becomes the apex predator, feeding on the tuna. [10] Decomposers play a role in the trophic pyramid. They provide ...
Trophic cascades are powerful indirect interactions that can control entire ecosystems, occurring when a trophic level in a food web is suppressed. For example, a top-down cascade will occur if predators are effective enough in predation to reduce the abundance, or alter the behavior of their prey, thereby releasing the next lower trophic level from predation (or herbivory if the intermediate ...
Trophic rewilding is an ecological restoration strategy focused on restoring trophic interactions and complexity (specifically top-down and associated trophic cascades where a top consumer/predator controls the primary consumer population) through species (re)introductions, in order to promote self-regulating, biodiverse ecosystems.
Ecological dominance is the degree to which one or several species have a major influence controlling the other species in their ecological community (because of their large size, population, productivity, or related factors) [1] or make up more of the biomass. Both the composition and abundance of species within an ecosystem can be affected by ...
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In addition to plant defense mechanisms, predators assist in the regulation of these herbivore population numbers, limiting the amount of vegetation that is consumed. Several ecosystems are characterized by a trophic cascade system, in which all levels interact and impact the persistence of one another (Siliman and Angelini, 2012). [4]